


Where the Weeping Willow Waits

by Disasteriffic_Kaz



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Caring Dean, Case Fic, Gen, Hallucifer, Hurt Sam, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disasteriffic_Kaz/pseuds/Disasteriffic_Kaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is ever quite what it seems in the forest in the dark. Set after 7x14 "PPMM" hurt/comfort/awesome!Sam/Dean</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This picks up directly after the end of "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie" so the beginning is a bit of a tag to it but this is a stand-alone hunt. This chapter sort of wanders for a bit. XD It got away from me.
> 
> Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P

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_Oh Willow Tree, oh solemn tree  
with each wind you bend._

_Oh Willow Tree, oh weeping tree  
beneath your bows I end._

_Oh Willow Tree, oh healing tree  
my brittle soul please mend._

_Oh Willow Tree, oh hungry tree  
I come with life to tend._

_~Disasteriffic Kaz_

**Chapter 1**

In the darkness the breeze drifted through the whispering wood, spinning leaves along the forest floor and sighing between the branches. It followed a lone figure as she ran, drying the tears on her flushed cheeks. The moon high above sent cold light to illuminate the trees around her in shadowed light and each seemed to her to be a threat. She spun one way and another, small sounds of terror taken away by the breeze to carry deeper in. The shadows seemed to move and shift around her. Her eyes followed the swaying limbs, widening at every creak of wood, every snap of a twig. Her breaths rasped from lungs too long hard-used and she stopped within the moon dappled forest to find her breath.

A shadow moved. A branch lifted. Long, thin limbs reached out of the dark while dim, red eyes grew ever nearer. Had she turned her back she would have seen; could have run but she did not. Graceful limbs like lithe snakes took hold of her. A leafy branch swallowed her scream as wood covered fingers wrapped tight around her throat and stole the last of her breath. She fell softly, cushioned by the killing limbs. Her eyes stared sightless up at the watching moon while the breeze lazily caressed long, blonde hair from her face as she was pulled and vanished beneath the silent trees.

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Sam leaned his head against the Charger's window and closed his eyes with a smirk. Dean was still chuckling in the driver's seat each time he looked over at him. The glitter, well most of it, was gone down the drain of a rest stop bathroom and that in itself had been a lesson in humility with the clerks laughing so hard their eyes had watered as Sam had glittered past them. He was sure they hadn't even noticed the blood. He pulled his head up from the window with a grimace as the lump on his right temple pressed into the glass, reminding him it was there. The Hoodoo clowns had done a number on him. The longer Sam sat still the more he was beginning to notice every bump, bruise and ache. He raised a hand to rub at his jaw; those clowns had had fists like sledge hammers.

"You gonna make it, Sparkles?" Dean asked with a laugh. Sam gave him a look that managed to be both amused and disgusted at the same time. Dean hadn't told him yet that though he'd gotten most of the glitter off in the restroom his back was now covered in it from the car seat when Sam had gotten back in. It frosted the back of his hair and winked in each passing headlight. It made it very hard for Dean to keep a straight face.

"Peachy." Sam replied and shook his head. "I am never going to live this down, am I?"

"Nope!" Dean said cheerfully. It was the best, the lightest he had felt in a long time. The laughter at seeing his little brother coated in glitter had helped to lighten the load on his shoulders just a little. It wouldn't last he knew but right now, it had felt so good to just laugh.

Sam shifted in the seat and tried to find a comfortable position as his back began to burn. The feeling of crashing into the truck's windshield was still fresh in his memory. With it that memory brought the reminder of the far too large wrench slamming into his stomach, the gloved fists that had pummeled him and he flinched.

"Hey." Dean's good humor lessened slightly as he realized Sam was shifting around on the seat uncomfortably. "You ok? How bad did those clowns beat you?"

Sam looked over and rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. It's nothing a good shower and maybe some brain bleach won't fix."

Dean snorted and looked back to the road, his humor returned. "I don't know, dude. Could be a good look for you."

"You suck." Sam retorted with a laugh and let his head drop back. His bruises could wait. There was no way he was going to be responsible for bringing Dean down when he was actually smiling. Sam jerked forward and grabbed a handful of the napkins Dean had tossed in, crushing them to his nose as it started bleeding again. "I hate clowns."

Dean couldn't help it, he laughed.

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Two hours later Dean had finally taken pity on his brother and got them a motel for the night. The simple room was refreshing after the Tiki heaven they'd stayed in. He grabbed a bottle of water and flopped on the bed, flipping on the tiny tv. He heard the shower turn off and chuckled. Sam had been in there for almost an hour, no doubt finding glitter in places it didn't belong; trying to wash away the evidence of his clown beat-down.

Sam pulled on his sweatpants and opened the bathroom door in a cloud of steam. The hot water had helped lessen some of the aches that had quickly become bad enough to make him want to whimper. He looked up and saw Dean push himself up with wide eyes.

"Holy crap, Sam." Dean came around the bed eyeing his brother's stomach. "What the hell'd they hit you with? A sledge hammer?" A vivid, purpling bruise rode high on Sam's stomach surrounded by other, smaller bruises and it hurt just looking at it.

"It's ok." Sam said offhandedly. He turned to find his shirt and then realized what Dean would see if he did. He tried to turn back and hide it too late as his brother grabbed his arm and made him stand still.

"Ok my ass." Dean scowled at the pattern of bruises across Sam's back. They spread out in almost a butterfly shape across his shoulders. "How are you even walkin?"

"Shower helped." Sam tugged his arm free and gave him a half smile. "Looks worse than it is."

"Bullshit." Dean went to his bag and rummaged through the first aid kit for the painkillers they kept there. No way was Sam getting any sleep without them.

Sam eyed the bottle when Dean turned back. "Dude, I'm fine. Doesn't even hurt that much."

"Really?" Dean smirked. "Then why don't you drop and give me twenty. I mean, if it doesn't hurt that much…" He waited while Sam scowled at him and finally his little brother reached out and took the bottle. "That's what I thought."

"I'm only taking these so you won't whine like a girl all night." Sam grinned at him and tossed two of the pills in his mouth.

"Oh I will find a way to make you pay for that one, Sammy." Dean laughed. He kept the easy smile on his face, watching as Sam lowered himself stiffly to his bed and then rolled back with a weary sigh.

"I'm never moving again." Sam closed his eyes and smiled. It felt good to being lying down finally. He jumped when he felt a hand on his head and flinched back.

"Whoa, just me. Sorry." Dean pushed Sam's shower damp hair away from his temples. There was a small dark bruise at his hairline on the right side and a small cut at the hairline on the left. "Least they left you your good looks." He smirked and stood back up. Dean had needed to see for himself since with Sam you could never count on a straight answer about how injured he was.

Sam shook his head and closed his eyes again. "Knocked the teeth outta one of them." He said and smiled, rolling to his side and pulled the blanket up over himself.

"Damn right." Dean grinned and went back to his own bed. He set the bottle on the nightstand between them, figuring Sam would need them again in a few hours once those bruises really sank in.

Sam shifted and opened his eyes only to flinch back in the bed as Lucifer's smiling face greeted him, lying beside him. He wore white-face with a huge, red grin sloppily painted over his mouth and a ridiculous, red foam nose.

"Night night, Sammy."

Sam resolutely turned away from him to face Dean instead. It had been too good a night, all things considered to let the devil in his head ruin it. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

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Sam groaned out of bed the next morning and hunched on the side of the bed against the pain and stiffness in his back. He vowed to make it his life's work never to be thrown into a windshield again. It never ended well for him.

"Mornin' grandpaw." Dean said as he came out of the bathroom. He ran his hands through his hair a couple times, expertly flipping the dirty blonde spikes into place and smiled. "You up for breakfast or should I just find you some hospital food?"

Sam waved a hand and stood. "Not hungry. You go grab something." He passed Dean into the bathroom. "I'll see about finding us a job."

"Nope. Wrong answer." Dean tossed the jeans and shirt Sam had left out the night before to him. "We're going to breakfast."

"Dude…"

"Don't 'dude' me." Dean gave him a stern glare. "We're eating as in you and me, both of us. You don't stoke that hulk of yours once a week it's gonna fall down." In truth there was a pallor to Sam's face this morning that he didn't like. Though Sam seemed fine other than the obvious aches, it was a symptom Dean had had all of Sam's life to learn; it meant he was thinking of coming down with something and no wonder after the clowns, the barely eating, barely sleeping most nights and Devil-vision in his head twenty-four-seven.

Sam rolled his eyes but took the clean clothes into the bathroom with him. There was no use arguing when Dean got this way. It would be easier to just go along and pick at something while Dean scarfed every ounce of pork in the county.

Ten minutes later, dressed and as ready as he was going to be Sam followed him out to the car and then groaned at the passenger seat. It was dusted in glitter from the back of his head and jacket the previous night.

Sam looked across the Charger's roof to Dean and smirked. "Can I drive?"

Dean threw his head back and laughed. "Hell no! Your mess. You sit in it."

Sam ducked into the car and in sudden inspiration he pulled Dean's jacket from the backseat and draped it over his own before getting in. He smiled as Dean sat beside him and then saw what he was leaning against.

"Oh you little shit, Sammy." Dean growled as he spied his jacket. There'd be glitter on it for months. "One more reason to get you back."

Sam chuckled and leaned back a little more firmly, pressing the coat into the glitter. "Don't know what you mean."

Dean rolled his eyes and started the car. "Paybacks are a bitch, little brother." He said ominously while Sam laughed.

"You made me get up." Sam reminded him.

By the time they reached the diner of Dean's choice, he had settled for randomly smiling at Sam in a way that was making his little brother nervous. "Knock it off." Sam told him when he looked up from the menu to find Dean just smiling at him again.

"Knock what off?" Dean asked innocently.

"You're smiling at me." Sam rolled his eyes. "It's not natural."

"Don't know what you're talking about, Sammy." Dean's smile became a grin as their attractive waitress came to take their orders.

Sam decided ignoring him was the only to make him stop and pulled his laptop up onto the table.

"What can I getcha, sugar?" The waitress nudged Sam's shoulder and he looked up, chagrined. He'd forgotten they were supposed to be ordering food.

"Oh, uh…coffee, toast, scrambled eggs." Sam smiled and went back to his laptop.

"Dude, you're hopeless." Dean shook his head. "Get him some bacon too." He smiled winningly at the waitress, enjoying the instant flush on her cheeks as she nodded and walked away.

Sam rolled his eyes and focused on research. Dean happily flirted with the waitress as they ate and Sam buried his head in news reports of the strange and unusual. Every so often Dean would slap the laptop closed and make him eat a few bites before going back to it.

"You know you're annoying?" Sam glanced up from the screen when a piece of bacon dropped onto the keyboard. Dean just nodded and smirked, making Sam chuckle. He sat back with a groan and stretched his stiff back. "You hadn't bugged me so often I might have found this hunt a lot sooner."

"Dude, you found something already?" Dean laid down the piece of jellied toast he'd been about to launch at his brother's face. "Whatcha got?"

"Missing people, three confirmed dead. Latest body found this morning and two dead kids." Sam said soberly and closed the laptop. "Dude, they were eaten."

"Oh man." Dean pushed the rest of his breakfast away, suddenly no longer hungry. "What the hell eats kids?"

Sam shrugged. "Could be a few things. I won't know until we get some more information. Look at the…remains."

"Don't think we want to go flashing FBI credentials with big mouths lurking everywhere." Dean sighed, frustrated at the way the Purgatory escapees had infringed on every aspect of their lives. They couldn't even use a hospital anymore without fear of ending up on the dinner menu.

"Well it's a small town. We can probably sweet talk our way in past the guard at night." Sam smirked. "It's two states over. Take us about nine hours."

"Well no time like the present." Dean tossed money on the table and gave a last admiring glance to the waitress. If children were dying he wanted to get moving. Those were the cases that always haunted him and his brother both. He grabbed Sam's arm under the elbow as he tried to unfold himself from the booth and hunched over.

"Damn I hate clowns." Sam said ruefully and straightened himself up.

"Oh honey, are you alright?" The waitress was at their side instantly, her face heavy with concern.

"He's fine." Dean told her with a chuckle. "Havin' some back issues."

"It's fine. Thanks." Sam blushed with the attention and shouldered his laptop. "Let's go."

"Ya'll take care now." She ducked her head, batting her lashes at Dean as they left.

"Almost makes me wanna stick around an extra day, Sammy." Dean whistled appreciatively as they stepped outside.

"Thought you were off one night stands." Sam reminded him and smiled as Dean nodded his head forcefully.

"I was just day dreaming. Trust me. No more monster spawn." Dean shivered theatrically as they rounded the building and headed for the car. He wasn't ready to think to hard about his short stint as a father or how it had ended. "You need help gettin' in the car, grandpa?"

Sam snorted a laugh as he rounded the trunk of the car near the back of the restaurant. "I think I can manage."

"Oh good you haven't left yet!" The waitress came from the back of the restaurant with a big smile. "You looked like you were in so much pain!" She went to Sam and put a hand on his arm. "I just had to see if you were really ok."

"Uh, thanks." Sam looked over at Dean, brows rising.

"Bad back you said?" She looked to Dean and then delivered a hard punch to Sam's back, slamming him over the trunk. She wrapped an arm around Sam's neck and pulled his head up as Dean growled and started around the car.

"What the hell, lady?" Dean's hand inched to the gun at his waistband only to think better of it. He had a sudden feeling and went for his flask instead.

"Imagine my surprise when the brother's Winchester wander into my restaurant. I know someone who would forever grateful if I took care of you two little problems." She tightened her grip on Sam's neck as she tilted her head back. Her face changed, her mouth becoming impossibly huge and filled with vicious teeth.

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_To Be Continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sam choked with the steely grip around his neck and felt his neck creaking as she pulled his head back and back. He rolled his eyes up and could see those nightmarish teeth coming for him and cringed as the horrific tongue flicked out to run down the side of his face. He closed his eyes and had faith his brother would be there.

"Hey, bitch!" Dean yanked the flask from his pocket and popped the cap. "Have a drink!" He splashed the contents onto her hideous leviathan face. She screamed as her skin began to burn and returned to her human form as one side of her face melted away into black goo.

Sam felt the borax splash along his head and relief gave him strength. He shoved her aside and kicked her down as her grip loosened. He was instantly at the trunk with Dean and reached in as it opened to grab one of the machete's there while their Leviathan waitress writhed on the ground.

"Quick, Sam. Someone's gonna hear this." Dean pulled out a spare bag as Sam stepped over her and swung the machete down to sever her head. The howling scream stopped as her head rolled a few feet away.

"Good thing you traded the whiskey for Borax." Sam kicked her head over to Dean and then bent over, bracing his hands on his knees. "Crap that hurt."

"You good?" Dean put the bag with the head into the trunk and pulled out a folded tarp.

"I'm ok." Sam hobbled to the trunk and used it to straighten up. As if his back hadn't hurt enough, now there was a solid knot between his shoulder blades where she had struck him. "Next time I'm picking the restaurant."

Dean nodded, his sense of humor gone for the moment. He rolled the headless body into the tarp and heaved it up into the trunk and slammed it shut. Sam still leaned on the car in a pained hunch. "Come on." He took his brother's arm and gave him a nudge toward his seat; opened the door and helped guide him in. Outwardly he did his best to project calm but inside the rage was screaming and arguing with the fear of nearly watching Sam have his head chewed off. He slid behind the wheel and gunned the Charger's engine. So far they were lucky. No one had come to investigate the noise. He hoped no one would. At least the only evidence was the black liquid no one but them would recognize.

"Damn." Sam gave up trying to play it off and leaned forward so his head rested on the dashboard, trying to ease the ache between his shoulders. "I'm fine." He said before Dean could say anything.

"Sure you are." Dean reached over and pulled the back of Sam's shirt and jacket up. "Crap."

"Quit it." Sam said but didn't try and stop him. Moving was too painful. "How bad's it look?"

"Like you got donkey-kicked by a Moose." Dean let the shirt and jacket fall back. "We're gonna pack up the room and get going now."

Sam nodded, all for that plan. If there was one Leviathan in town there might be more. He concentrated on ignoring the latest burning pain in his back as Dean drove. Some days even he couldn't believe the level of bad luck that seemed to plague them.

"Beep, beep, Sammy." Lucifer's voice came from the backseat. Sam flinched and snuck a look under his arm. The vision of the Devil sat leaning on his arms on the seat still in clown make-up and grinned at Sam. "We should stick around. Not sure I like those big mouths screwing around in my playground but I gotta say, they do have some style."

Sam closed his eyes and pressed his forehead harder into the dash. He flinched again at a touch on his shoulder.

"Easy, Sammy." Dean had seen the tightening of his already tight shoulders and the furtive glance into the back seat and put two and two together. Sam's resistance to the crazy crap in his head always seemed to be worse when he was injured and Dean knew he was in a world of hurt right now. He saw Sam's right hand creep into his left above his head on the dash and grimaced. Lucifer had to be doing something new to drive him to that this quickly. "Right here, Sam." Dean kept his hand on his shoulder as he drove until they pulled up at their motel. When he stopped the car, he opened his mouth to tell Sam to sit tight but his brother was already opening the door and using it to pull himself out.

Sam stood with difficulty but he didn't want to be in the car just then with Lucifer whistling circus tunes in his ear. "Let's get out of here." He said as Dean came around and opened the room door.

Dean just nodded and said nothing. He was trusting Sam to tell him if it got too bad; if he was losing touch with reality again. They packed the room in near silence, both lost in their own thoughts and yet each had one eye to the door as if expecting a Leviathan to burst through at any moment. Dean breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled away from the motel and headed out of town.

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Sam somehow convinced Dean to drive through rather than stop halfway. He had argued that they didn't want to leave a trail to be followed if there had been more Leviathans in town. When they arrived in Johnstown, Missouri at near midnight Sam was ready to beg for a place to lie down. Dean must have known as he didn't even bother asking him to go get them a room at the motel; leaving him in the car while he ran in himself.

Once Dean parked, Sam pushed his door open and then just sat there. He couldn't figure out how to get out of the car without ending up on his face, his back hurt that bad. "Dean."

"Wondered when exactly you were gonna come clean." Dean shook his head and came around the car. "Come on, gimp." He took Sam's arm and pulled him out so he was standing. "You think I didn't see you squirming for the last six hours?"

"Wasn't that bad." Sam shuffled slowly toward the room door with Dean at his side.

"Uh huh. Pull the other one." Dean opened the door, flipped the light on and took a look around. "Awesome. We get the room a Smurf blew up in." The walls were pastel blue, the carpet a darker shade of blue while the beds were covered in spreads that matched the walls. Even the wood of the furniture had been painted in pastel blue. Dean rolled his eyes in disgust when he saw the blue microwave in the corner. "Sheesh."

"Stayed in worse." Sam commented as he went inside and headed for the far bed. "I think." He struggled to get his jacket off without moving his arms too much and felt truly useless when Dean had to come over and pull it off for him.

"Lay down already. You're makin' me hurt just looking at you." Dean watched his brother ease slowly to the bed and then roll onto his stomach with a pained gasp.

"Sucks." Sam muttered and buried his face in the pillow. On his stomach it still hurt like hell but he could at least take an almost full breath. He listened as Dean went in and out of the room bringing in their bags and heard the door shut.

"Dude, even the damn towels are blue." Dean groaned.

Sam heard him running water and then come back in the room. He looked up over his arm when he heard the microwave door open. He saw Dean toss what looked like a wet towel inside, then close the door and turn it on.

"Why are you nuking a towel?" Sam asked, confused.

"Remember when Dad tore that muscle in his leg hunting the shifter in Texas?" Dean asked as he watched the towel cook.

Sam nodded. "I was like…twelve. Yeah."

"Eleven. Trust me." Dean popped open the door and took the towel out, tossing it from hand to hand as it burned his fingers. He went over to Sam with a smirk, quickly folded it and laid it between Sam's shoulders blades over his shirt.

"Holy crap." Sam groaned, actually it was more of a moan of relief as the heat instantly soaked into his back and the pain started to bleed away, the muscles to loosen.

Dean chuckled. "Had to do this for Dad for days. Only thing that helped." Sam only managed a grunt of thanks and Dean laughed. He went about the room, pouring lines of salt at the door and window, scrawling protective symbols in the blue painted wood with a sharpie while Sam fell asleep with one arm dangling off the side of the bed.

"About damn time." Dean said softly, smiling. He grabbed Sam's laptop and put it on the table. He knew he'd have to replace the hot towel a few more times before Sam would be able to move again so he decided to pass the time with research. He looked longingly at the icon on the desktop for Busty Asian Beauties but left it alone with a sigh. Kids were dying. Porn could wait.

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Sam woke and it took a moment for it to sink in that while his back ached, it only ached. The stabbing pain was gone. He blinked his eyes open and pushed up on his elbows to look around the room. "Dean?" As he spoke the room's door opened and Dean appeared with a brown bag and two large cups of coffee.

"Mornin' sunshine." Dean grinned. "Breakfast." He held up the bag and set it on the table with the coffees.

Sam sat up slowly, stretching his arms above his head slowly and smiled when it didn't do more than pull a little.

"Told ya." Dean waggled his brows at him. "Come on. I got that frou-frou crap you like."

Sam chuckled and stood. "Thanks, Dean." He didn't mean just for the coffee.

"Well, I figured I could hunt this bitch alone but where would be the fun in that?" Dean watched Sam as he walked and nodded, satisfied he was moving more like a normal person.

"Bitch?" Sam asked and saw his laptop out. "You find something?" He sat in one of the blue chairs and took a sip of his coffee with a happy sigh.

"Something." Dean pulled donuts out of the bag and passed one to his brother. "Whatever's killing people is in the woods outside of town but I got clear signs of a Witch operating in the town." He pushed his scrawled notes over to Sam.

Sam looked through them, translating Dean's chicken scratch with a raised brow. "So, something she's summoned is in the woods eating kids?" He asked and looked up.

Dean shrugged. "Don't know. I say we go ask her." His smile faded. "There was another body this morning."

"Kid?" Sam asked but Dean shook his head.

"Guy. Strangled and mangled according to the cop at the donut shop." Dean told him. "Said the scene was a mess."

"We should check the scene out first." Sam set his coffee down. "It'd be helpful to know what's actually killing them before we go after the Witch who called it."

"We can do both." Dean polished off his donut and took another out of the bag.

"Wait, you know who she is already?" Sam stared at him. "Did you even get any sleep?"

Dean snorted. "I got enough. I asked around. People here are pretty talkative about the weird old lady who lives in the shack at the edge of the woods."

"Nice." Sam nodded. "That's convenient."

"Gets strange though. Apparently no one's seen her in a few weeks." Dean licked white powder off his fingers and then sat back with his coffee. "No one goes near her house. Found a couple kids who said they used to dare each other to run up and touch her door but then a kid went missing. They stopped."

"Witches don't go quiet for no reason." Sam frowned. "I don't like it."

"Me either. Go shower and we'll check it out." Dean flicked white powder at him and smirked. "You stink."

"Bite me." Sam laughed and stood, marveling again that he could move almost normally today.

While Sam showered, Dean went to the car and grabbed the other bag he'd brought and quickly assembled the charms Bobby had once shown him how to make since the job in Prosperity, Indiana. No Witch would be leaving them presents in their room while they were gone this time.

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The forest was peaceful during the day. The half mile of woods between them and town silenced all sounds of civilization. There was little to hear but the breeze pushing through the trees and the occasional cheery bird. It was at odds with the gruesome scene in the small clearing Sam and Dean studied. Grasses were matted and trampled, blood splashed and splattered in bright swaths across the ground like a macabre painting and yellow police markers showed where the pieces of their victim had been collected earlier. It had been a massacre of one.

"Poor sucker." Dean said, shaking his head. "Whatever killed him, guy didn't have a chance."

Sam walked under the graceful, draping boughs of a Willow tree and looked up. He stepped back in surprise. "What'd they do to this guy to splatter blood all the way up there?" Sam pointed up. Some of the limbs of the Willow tree were coated in drying blood.

"Well the cop I talked to said it was messy but damn." Dean studied the little bloodied clearing and then frowned. He knelt in the leaf litter and grabbed a twig, using it to push aside some of the leaves. "Dude. Check it out. Is that a footprint?"

Sam came and knelt beside him and studied it. The impression in the loose soil was vague, it might have had toes, he couldn't be sure and it was ridiculously narrow for a human foot. "I have no idea."

"Not human then, whatever Witchie-poo called up." Dean stood and dusted off his hands. "Let's go see if she's got anything to say." He looked around at the surrounding trees and shivered. "You get the feeling like we're not alone?"

"Since we stepped into the woods yeah." Sam rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. "Wish we knew what did this…and how to kill it."

"Let's go." Dean tapped his arm and started off. "House is this way about a half mile."

Every snap of a twig, brush of wind through a tree or rustle of the underbrush had their nerves on edge. Sam kept wary eyes on the trees as they passed through them, unable to shake the feeling that something was pacing them. He knew Dean felt the same as his Desert Eagle had long since found its way into his hand. The afternoon soon was high overhead and did little to warm the late October chill from the air beneath the trees.

"Sam." Dean called and slowed, stopping behind a wide tree. He nodded to the side of a little house through the trees. "That's it."

It didn't look like much. The siding was long since worn by wind and weather to a non-descript gray. Shutters hung at haphazard angles from the windows. Vines crawled up the wall of the house nearest them and a massive, ancient Willow tree leaned out over its single story, steepled roof. It looked abandoned.

"What do you think?" Sam drew his own gun and watched the house.

"Front door?" Dean shrugged. "May as well try the obvious first."

Sam nodded. "Probably the best bet. No telling what kind of wards she has on the place."

Dean shivered as memories of spewing his own blood danced through his head. "Yeah let's not trip one of those. Let's go."

They went silently up to the back of the house. Dean pointed to an old, canted door padlocked that led to the house's cellar as they passed it and went around to the front. If there was anyone home, there was no sign. It was silent. No curtains or windows open and no sound nor smoke from the little chimney. They rounded the front and Dean frowned. The lawn, such as it was, was overgrown. A beat up car stood in the dirt drive; the driver side door was open and vines had begun to climb across the roof.

"Huh. Well that's not ominous at all." Dean looked to the house then. The front door was cracked open. "What the hell?"

"I'm starting the think the reason no one's seen her in a while is cause she's not here anymore." Sam went up the creaking steps to the porch and pushed the door wider with the nose of his gun. "Smells musty in here."

Dean followed him into the house and wrinkled his nose. "That's not musty." It was the smell of something dead…long dead. "Don't touch anything."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude. Witch's house. No kidding." They split apart to search the rooms and found them unlived in for weeks at least. A layer of dust coated everything, even the untouched meal on the kitchen table. Sam poked at what was once a sandwich beneath the mold.

"Got the cellar stairs." Dean called from the hall. He went through the open door and tried the light switch on the wall. To his surprise, the bulb in the room below actually flickered on. "Nice." He went slowly the down the stairs and his brows rose as a pair of legs came into view. "Hey, Sam. I think I found her." The smell of rot was much stronger, burning his eyes and nose. He covered his nose and mouth with his arm against the growing stench. "Man she is ripe."

Dean heard Sam at the top of the stairs as his foot hit the bottom step and then the world turned upside down. There was an explosion in his ears. Some unseen force picked him up in a gust of wind and through him across the small cellar. The last thing he heard as he smacked hard into the stone wall was his brother's voice shouting his name.

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_To Be Continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sam followed Dean's voice to the cellar door. He looked down at his brother below as he reached the bottom. A whirl-wind of air suddenly blew up the stairs as Dean was pulled out of sight.

"Dean!" Sam tried to step forward and then was thrown backward into the wall as the cellar door slammed shut. He slid to the floor and scrambled back up. "Dean! Answer me! Dean!" He pounded on the door; tried to turn the knob but the door wouldn't so much as shiver in its frame even when he kicked it repeatedly. The silence from below was deafening and terrified him. "Dammit!" He tried kicking the door one more time and then remembered the door they had passed outside. "Dean, I'm coming! Hold on!"

Sam ran from the house, jumped the rickety stairs outside and sprinted around to the back, desperate to find his brother.

Dean groaned and opened his eyes. He lurched back. "Crap!" He was looking into the dead, milky eyes of what he assumed was the Witch. His head reeled with the movement as he pushed himself up the wall until he was sitting. His back was a mass of aches from his impact with the wall. "Sam?" He called. Dean leaned forward a little to see up the stairs. The door was closed and there was no sign of his brother. He frowned looking up and noticed a fine, white mist near the ceiling that was slowly descending.

"Oh, that can't be good." Dean inched slowly up the wall until he was standing hunched over. The mist didn't have a smell he could detect. He held a shaking hand just below it as it moved and felt nothing. He shrugged and pushed his left hand up into it. Nothing happened.

"Glad Sam didn't see that." He groaned, knowing it had been reckless. "Ok, what the hell is it then?" He looked up the stairs and shrugged. "No choice." Dean stepped away from the wall and wobbled for a moment before steadying himself against the spinning in his head. He went around the dead witch and saw her altar off to his right. Sam would need to see it. Dean reached the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath. "Here goes."

Dean went up the stairs as quickly as he could. As soon as his head passed through the mist he felt as if all the air were being sucked from his lungs. He gagged and gasped, trying to get a breath but none would come. His eyes bulging he fell back to the bottom of the stairs beneath the mist. The air returned and he heaved in deep breaths.

"Holy…crap." Dean panted and stared angrily at the fog. "Ok." He looked around the room and saw the short flight of stairs up the outer door. "Nice!" The mist had gotten low enough he had to walk with his hands almost on the floor, crouched low enough to avoid it. By the time he reached the stairs he was on his hands and knees. The mist had just reached the top of the door feet above his head. He sucked in another breath and reached up through the mist, rattling the doors while the mist crawled down his arms.

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Sam skidded to a stop in front of the slanted doors to the cellar and fumbled in his back pocket for his lockpicks. He dropped to his knees and wrapped a hand around the padlock holding them shut. The doors rattled in front of him.

"Dean?" Sam shouted. "Dean, is that you?"

"Sammy! Hurry the hell up!" Dean's voice sounded strained, panicked.

"Ok, just gimme a minute." Sam bent to the lock, inserting his picks.

"Don't have a minute!" Dean yelled back. "Bitch laid a trap! There's a freakin mist it's…"

Dean's voice cut off and Sam froze. "Dean!" There was no answer and panic choked him as he fought to open the padlock. "Come on!" Finally it popped open with a little snick. He yanked it free of the handles and tossed it away then ripped the doors open. "Dean?" The afternoon sunlight filtered down the short stairs. His brother lay at the bottom with a heavy white mist slowly passing through him and into the floor.

Sam jumped down the steps and wrapped his arms under Dean's shoulders. "Come on. Dean?" There was no answer. Sam pulled him up the stairs and laid him down in the grass outside. "Dean!" He laid a hand to Dean's neck. His heart was still beating, but sluggishly and he realized his big brother wasn't breathing.

"Shit!" Sam tilted Dean's head back and frantically blew two breaths into him. He slapped Dean's face lightly. When he got no response he breathed for him again. "Dean, dammit breathe!" Sam rubbed his knuckles harshly into Dean's sternum. Dean suddenly coughed and then gasped, shooting upright as his eyes flew open and he heaved in gales of air. Sam was dizzy with relief.

"Easy, Dean. Just breathe." Sam held his shoulders while he oriented himself.

"I hate…witches!" Dean glared down the cellar stairs. "She aint dead enough."

"What the hell happened?" Sam leaned back as Dean's breathing slowed.

"Some kind of mist." Dean rubbed a hand over his face. "Suffocated me. Maybe her too. I dunno. She could have gotten caught in her own trap I guess."

"I'm gonna go have a look." Sam made to rise but Dean grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"Are you stupid?" Dean said angrily. "And what if the damn thing goes off again?"

"It's ok, Dean." Sam smiled and pulled his hand off his arm. "I'll stay away from the other stairs but we need to know what she was doing." He patted his brother's shoulder. "Just stay here and breathe for a while. I'll be right back." Sam didn't wait for Dean's approval before ducking into the door and down the stairs out of sight.

"Sam?" Dean called nervously.

"Still here." Sam yelled back up and damn him, he sounded amused.

Dean gave up and flopped back into the grass. "Friggin Witches."

Sam was careful as he walked not to touch anything or step on anything. He knelt for a moment by the Witch's body. There was no doubt she was dead and had been for a while but there were no signs of violence on her, no wounds or even blood; just one very dead practitioner of the black arts. He left her alone and went to the altar at the back of the earthen cellar. Black candles had long burned down into inky pools. There were bits of desiccated remains, entrails he thought, slivers of wood and leaves. All around them were scrawled arcane symbols. Some he recognized, others he didn't. The ones he recognized were making him nervous. He took out his phone and snapped a few careful pictures of the altar before he made his way back out, giving a wide berth to the stairs that had set off the trap.

"Dean?" Sam knelt where Dean lay and smiled when his brother blinked up at him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got caught in a bad Stephen King movie." Dean groaned and let Sam pull him up. "Choked by friggin fog man."

"Come on." Sam pulled him up and held on to him when he swayed. "Crap, Dean." He ran a hand up the back of Dean's head and came away with blood. "How hard did you hit that wall?"

"What'd you find?" Dean wobbled a few steps and steadied with Sam's hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not sure. It's not good though." Sam stayed at his side as they headed back into the woods. "There were some symbols on the altar I know and a bunch I don't."

"What about the ones you know?" Dean gave his head a shake to clear the cobwebs and listed to one side, again set straight by his brother.

"It was a summoning for sure but there was also something about transformation and revenge." Sam shook his head. "and another one for unending death…or hunger. Not sure which."

"Well that doesn't sound good." Dean sighed. "How come they can't ever be like Glinda?"

Sam chuckled. "You wanna pick a direction there, dizzy?" He gave up and pulled Dean's arm over his shoulders to keep him walking straight. A rustle in the trees ahead of them stopped him.

"What?" Dean looked up. He'd been drifting for a moment.

"Maybe nothing." Sam started walking again and the rustling sound came again this time ahead of them and off to their sides. "Uh…Dean?"

"Yeah I heard it that time." Dean narrowed his eyes. The feeling of being watched had returned. The hair on his arms was standing up.

"Ok." Sam turned them around back toward the Witch's house.

"Dude, where are you going?" Dean tried to stop but Sam pulled him along. "Car's the other way."

"I don't think we'll make it to the car." Sam moved faster. The sense of foreboding that had come over him was deepening to dread.

"I'd get a move on, Sammy." Lucifer stepped out from behind a tree, still in clown guise and folding a balloon animal while he grinned. He held up his finished product, a long deformed image of a person.

Sam flinched and looked away. He didn't have time for this. "Faster, Dean."

"You know something I don't?" Dean looked over his shoulder and could see nothing but trees and branches waving in the wind.

"Just a feeling." Sam told him as the house came back in sight. Something moved to their left as they neared and Sam stopped. He pulled his gun back out and squinted. He could have swore the tree had moved. "Dean?"

"Hey, Sammy." Dean watched as long, bark covered limbs swayed out from a tree to his right. "This tree's moving."

"I don't like this." Sam pulled Dean back into motion and had them at nearly a run to the house. "Move!"

An impossibly tall figure stepped away from the trees ahead of them. It was clearly feminine in figure but covered in bark. Her arms and legs were like narrow tree branches, twigs and leaves grew out of her head in a mockery of hair and her face was an evil twisted caricature of a womans'. Her eyes blazed a bright yellow as she looked down at them.

"Oh crap." Sam breathed. He looked at his gun realizing it wasn't going to be a damn bit of use to them. "We gotta run for it."

"What the hell are these things?" Dean asked.

Sam whipped his head to follow Dean's gaze and found a second creature closing on them. "Spriggans, Dean. We need fire to kill them."

"This is what she called?" Dean stared at the creature as it edged closer to them.

"Has to be." Sam got them to the back of the house. "We have to run for the front door. Can you?"

Dean pulled his arm away from his brother and nodded. "Wish I'd brought a flame thrower." He eyed the two creatures closing on them. They were hideous and disfigured, like a blind man on a bender had carved them from a tree. They were at least eight feet tall and unless his concussion was worse than he thought…they were slowly getting taller.

"Run!" Sam gave him a shove toward the front of the house and pelted along beside him. The Spriggans let loose a piercing, ululating cry behind them and he could hear their growing feet crashing into the ground behind them. They rounded the corner of the house in a rush. Dean vaulted the porch railing and went for the door. Sam followed and shouted as his foot was tugged out from under him. He rolled to his back and planted his other foot against the creaking railing. The nearest Spriggan, now an impossible twelve feet tall leaned down and had latched spindly, wooden fingers around his ankle.

"Sam!" Dean saw him crash to the porch and the Spriggan looming beyond.

Sam yanked his gun from his back and fired into the creature's face. He knew it wouldn't kill it but he hoped it would startle her enough to let him go. Dean's legs suddenly appeared over him and the loud report of his desert eagle joined his own shots. The Spriggan screamed, rearing back and let Sam's leg dropped. She scrubbed both hands over her misshapen face.

"Up. Now." Dean reached down and took Sam's hand, pulling him to his feet. Together they staggered through the front door and slammed it shut. "Well what now?" Dean panted and leaned against the door. They could hear the heavy footsteps of the Spriggans stomping around the house.

Sam dropped to the floor to sit and pulled his foot in to check his ankle. He pointed up above the door. "Horseshoe. Saw it when we came in." He tugged up his pantleg but couldn't see much in the dim light filtering through the dusty, closed curtains in the hall. "Supposed to keep Spriggans out."

Dean knelt and tugged his foot over. "Lemme look." He fished his flashlight out of his pocket. "Any other bright ideas? Cause eventually they're just gonna rip the roof off or something."

"Lemme think." Sam closed his eyes as Dean felt around his sore ankle. "Been a while since I read up on them."

"You're such a geek." Dean said fondly and sighed. "This is sprained." There were rings of bruises around the skin of Sam's ankle and partway up his calf from the thing's fingers. "Lucky she didn't snap you like a twig." Sam nodded, his mind on the creature's outside. "Sit tight." Dean stood and headed for the living room to their left. He peeked out the curtains and saw one of the Spriggans still in giant size pacing in front of the house. He could hear the other somewhere off to the side.

Dean couldn't see a single scrap of fabric anywhere not coated in dust. He started rifling drawers and found a stash of large, linen napkins. "Yahtzee." He took them and went back to Sam. "Gonna wrap this. Stay still."

Sam nodded again and gritted his teeth as Dean wrapped the linen tightly around his ankle to contain the swelling. "I think we can get to the car."

"You think?" Dean looked up with a smirk. "Not inspiring confidence, Sam." He tied off the makeshift bandage and pulled Sam's pant leg back down. He took his brother's arm and pulled him back up. "What's the plan?"

Sam sighed. "You won't like it." Dean just crossed his arms and waited. "Ok. There's some old lore."

"How old?" Dean interrupted.

"Uh…old. Doesn't matter." Sam shook his head. "If we turn our coats inside out it should drive them off." Dean's brows rose and he opened his mouth but Sam cut him off. "I know how it sounds but…it should work. You turn an article of clothing inside out and uh…wave it at them."

Dean shook his head slowly. "Why is it always the Faerie creatures with the freaky weaknesses?" He stripped off his jacket and pulled the sleeves out. "You stay here and if I get torn limb from limb I WILL haunt your ass."

"Dean…"

"No argument. You're not running on that ankle." Dean went to the door and cracked it open. "This is a stupid idea." He slipped out of the door and out onto the porch. The Spriggan lurking out front saw him almost immediately. She gave another of her strange cries and leaned down, reaching for him. Dean swallowed his pride and ran forward waving his turned out jacket in her face. To his shock, the Spriggan screamed and reared back. She backed away as the second Spriggan came to join her.

"Well I'll be damned." Dean ran out toward them waving his jacket. As one the Spriggans shrank back down to the seven or eight feet they had been when they'd first seen them and vanished into the forest. He ran a hand through his hair and went back to the house. Sam hobbled out onto the porch with his own inside out jacket in his hands and a smirk. "Can not believe that worked."

"Well we still have to get back to the car." Sam used the railing to get the down the stairs and didn't argue when Dean took his arm. "Don't know how many are out there or how long this will work." He held up his own jacket.

"Let's not find out." Dean got them moving around the house. As they passed beyond it into the wood again the rustling began back in the trees as before. The creaking of wood kept their nerves on edge and the furtive glances of tall figures slipping among the trees in the dappled shadows let them know they were not alone but the creature's kept their distance.

When they finally emerged from the wood and spotted the car they were exhausted and cold and their nerves were raw. The strange cry of the Spriggans went up in the forest behind them and drifted away on the late afternoon breeze.

"I'm coming back here with a flame thrower!" Dean shouted back at the trees before following Sam to the car.

"I need my laptop." Sam told him as Dean slid in behind the wheel.

"What's to know? Spriggans and we burn them. Right?" Dean shrugged and pulled away from the forest's edge in relief.

Sam tossed his jacket in the back seat along with Dean's as the car's heater came to life. "It's those symbols on the altar. I'm missing something." He pulled out his phone and looked through the pictures he'd taken. "I know it."

Dean shook his head. "Well you can geek with the research while I hit up the local hardware store and MacGuyver us a couple flame throwers." He smiled, imagining how satisfying it would be to watch the creature's go up in flames.

Sam nodded absently, eyes focused on the images on his phone. He limped into the motel room when they arrived and distractedly thanked his brother when he propped his foot up on a chair and dropped a bag of ice on his ankle. His eyes were on the laptop's screen as he loaded the images from his phone onto it and started searching. He dug through every reference he could find online for the symbols, trying to identify them all. By the time Dean returned an hour later, Sam was sitting back in his chair with a look on his face his brother didn't like.

"What?" Dean asked, setting the bags of materials on his bed and shutting the door. "Why do you look like someone ran over your dog?"

"We have a problem." Sam told him and turned the laptop so Dean could see the screen. He had translated all the symbols.

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_To Be Continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"What?" Dean walked over and bent to look more closely. "Dude, no way. Those are just legend. Like friggin Santa Claus."

Sam shook his head. "They're real just really damn rare." He turned the laptop back around. "Bobby had a book on them." He said softly and had to push the sadness back. "Well, more like a child's story, like the kind you tell your kids to scare them."

"Great. Tommyknockers." Dean sat in the chair and pulled the laptop back across the table to read. "Spriggans weren't bad enough?"

"I don't think the Witch called them." Sam shook his head again. "I think they're here because of the Willow Man. From what I've been able to dig up, they're drawn to them." He pulled the ice bag off his ankle now that it was mostly melted and stood, hobbling over to his bed to stretch out more comfortably. "That's why the Witch is dead. She created the Willow Man. It's like a Witch's final act of revenge if they're strong enough."

"Dude, it killed her." Dean said in surprise.

Sam nodded. "It's why they're so rare. The Witch has to give her life into the spell to create one. Whoever this Willow Man used to be, she was pissed enough to give her own life to punish him."

"And any child that wanders across his damn path." Dean growled as he read. "She gets a bug up her ass at some dude and turns him into a creature that eats kids? Nice."

"It's punishment. He's still in there somewhere." Sam said sadly. "So the lore says anyway. It sounds like being possessed. He's aware but can never affect the actions of the Willow Man. All he can do is watch."

"You got anything on how we gank one?" Dean stood and went to the bags on his bed. He started pulling things out and arranging them in preparation for assembling his homemade flamethrowers.

"That's the tricky part." Sam leaned his head back against the wall. "The Witch would have bound him to a Willow Tree when she created him. He has to be killed with the tree. Kill him while the tree lives and he'll come back. Kill the tree while he lives and he's free to go wherever the hell he wants." He looked over at Dean. "We have to stake him to his tree and burn them both."

"And how do we know which damn Willow is the right tree?" Dean waited and wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"It'll be the tree he takes the children to…to eat them." Sam said with distaste.

"Ok no. There has to be a better way." Dean growled. "We are not waiting for this sick bastard to nab another kid for lunch."

"No. I think we just need to find out where the cops found the…remains of the dead children." Sam sat back up. "That should be his tree. The right tree. There was another entry that said if you cut a Willow Man's tree it'll bleed…like actual blood."

"Ok that helps." Dean sat on the bed and got comfortable with his construction job. He was looking forward to torching the Spriggans and now the evil bastard munching on the local children as well. "How's the ankle?"

"Better." Sam smiled. "It's fine just no marathons for a while."

Dean smirked. "Here." He tossed some of the parts to Sam who snatched them out of the air. "Get cookin'."

Sam wondered how other families spent a quiet afternoon at home; lunch and tv maybe? He found an odd sort of comfort in sitting in a Smurf blue motel room constructing homemade flame throwers with his brother and smiled. What did they know anyway?

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"I think you wrapped this too tight." Sam shook out his foot, irritated with the bandage wrapped around it inside his boot. "My toes are numb."

"That's cause they're carryin' around ten feet of sasquatch." Dean smirked at him and hitched his bag higher on his shoulder as they walked back into the forest. They each held compact flame throwers, ready for another Spriggan attack.

The early evening breeze was colder than they had expected. Fall was coming early to Missouri and put a bite in the air as they slipped into the trees in the fading light. They decided to head first to the Willow tree where the man had been killed the day before. A brief stop to check the police report for the location of the children's bodies had netted them nothing. Wherever the Willow Man was killing them, he later moved them and dumped them at the edge of the forest. That left them with the unenviable task of testing every Willow tree they could find in the forest.

"Dean." Sam whispered his brother's name. He heard something rustling in the forest off to their right as they neared the tree.

"I hear it." Dean flicked on his flashlight and turned it toward the sounds. The light faded more quickly beneath the trees and though it was not dark yet, it was twilight in their leafy world. The beam played along trunks and bushes, limbs reaching out into the air. He waited and a moment later saw something shift through the growing shadows and out of sight. "Yeah, they're here."

Sam clicked the trigger on his flamethrower, taking comfort in the pilot light that lit and pulled the inside out shirt from his belt. He'd tucked it there as extra insurance in case a Spriggan got too close. He looked up as they entered the small clearing and studied the Willow tree holding court above it. Sam had always like Willows. They bent and flowed with the strongest winds yet never broke. They would survive where other, thicker trees would shatter and fall or be washed away by floods. It bothered him that a Willow tree could be tied to such evil now.

"Incoming!" Dean shouted and his flamethrower spurted fire in an arc as a Spriggan erupted from a stand of bushes, her misshapen body lengthening as she came. The flames caught her in a cloud. Her bark like skin turned to flaming embers and she screamed. "Who's your daddy!" Dean grinned as the Spriggan collapsed to the leaf covered ground and burned merrily, her screams silenced.

Sam chuckled. A cry from his left warned him and he spun, spitting fire onto the Spriggan that thought to catch his back unprotected. She screamed like the first and spun about in circles uselessly trying to stop the flames. "Dean! Your left!" Sam shouted as a third Spriggan emerged from the screening trees and went straight for his brother.

"Need a light?" Dean covered the creature in a wash of flame as it came for him and stepped out of her path as she went up like a tinderbox.

Sam searched the edges of the clearing but saw nothing more coming for them. He started sidling closer to Dean and then gasped as the Spriggan screamed past him for the Willow tree. "Shit! Stop her!" Sam ran after her, frantic. "Don't let her set the tree on fire!" If the tree burned and it was THE tree, the Willow Man's tree he would be free to roam wherever he wanted. The Spriggan collided with the tree. Flames spun up the narrow limbs above her as she wrapped her arms around its trunk.

Dean sprinted ahead of Sam and spun a kick into the creature's side. The impact knocked her loose to roll across the grass and land in a burning heap, no longer moving. Sam dropped his flame thrower and stripped off his jacket. He used it and the turned out shirt to beat at the flames licking along the trees' bark. Sam coughed smoke and stepped back finally as the last of the flames was smothered.

"Dude, you don't even know if it's the right tree." Dean slapped him on the back a few times as he coughed.

"Couldn't risk it." Sam pulled a knife from his belt and went back to the tree. "Our luck, if it burned we'd be screwed."

"Can't argue with that." Dean nodded and kept a watch on the surrounding forest while Sam tested the tree.

Sam cut a small slice into the charred back, chipping away until he reached the meat of the tree and cut deeply into it. To his relief only sap welled from the wound. "We're good. Wrong tree."

"Figures." Dean bent and handed Sam his flame thrower. "How's your jacket?"

Sam held up his abused jacket and sighed. "Toast." He let it drop into the leaves along with the half burnt shirt and shivered. Night was now truly fallen. The smoldering bodies of the Spriggans provided a macabre light to see by.

"Ok. Witch's house." Dean gestured off the way they had walked earlier in the day. "My money's on that big daddy Willow next to it."

They strode through now darkened forest, flashlights sending shadows dancing through the underbrush. There was no way to know if they had killed all the Spriggans but Sam thought not. He could not shake the feeling that something was still indefinably wrong with the forest. Where the creaking of the wind driven branches and leaves should have been soothing, it was nerve-wracking. The swish of dead leaves at their feet should have seemed quiet but instead each step echoed in the darkening night like a signal to whatever lurked beyond the watchful trunks of the trees. The feeling made Sam's skin crawl.

The Witch's house, which had simply looked run-down and abandoned during the day, had an altogether different feeling in the dark. It seemed to loom through the screening branches as they neared, visible even in the darkness. The cellar door through which they had escaped drew Dean's eyes and sent a chill along his spine. He slapped an arm out to stop Sam in his tracks and pointed.

"It's closed. I didn't close it." Dean said softly.

Sam's eyes widened. "I didn't close it."

Dean cursed and searched the surrounding darkness more warily. "Spriggans?" He mouthed to Sam who only shrugged.

Sam pulled out his knife and started for the Willow Tree just beyond the cellar door. It was one of the largest Willows he had seen. He remembered Bobby telling him once when he was young that the roots of a Willow tree mirrored the top of the tree; that being why they were such a nuisance to pipes and pools. They could push through anything eventually. The roots for this tree, he thought, must extend for a hundred yards at least beneath the ground. He wondered that there had been none in the Witch's cellar, close as it was along the back wall of the house. Sam placed a hand on the rough bark of the tree and glanced over to Dean who gave him a nod.

Sam dug the blade of his knife into the bark, prying a long slice away. He dug the point of the blade into the meat of the tree and dragged it down. He stepped back as blood, dark and viscous welled from the cut to ooze down the side of the tree.

"Dean." Sam called softly and shined his light, making the fresh blood sparkle darkly.

"Yahtzee." Dean smiled and came for a closer look. "That is just…wrong."

"Remember. Don't torch the Willow Man or the tree until we have him staked to it." Sam warned. If they didn't destroy them together and the tree burned, they might never be able to kill him.

Dean nodded. He pulled the bag from his shoulder and took two thick, silver rods out. He gave one a practiced flick and it extended to around five feet in length with a sharp point and handed it to Sam. He did the same with the other and stepped away from the tree to the corner of the house. Sam moved off to the nearby line of trees and eased behind them to wait, clicking off his flashlight and letting the moonlight take over.

"Sammy, you know this isn't going to end well." Lucifer's wheedling voice spoke in Sam's ear and made him jump; gasping for a breath.

Sam resisted the urge to look to his left even as a still white-gloved hand reached up to run along his arm. He flinched away with a shake of his head as Lucifer chuckled. He needed to focus.

"You're going to get your ass handed to you by Treebeard, Sam." Lucifer smirked and leaned around Sam so he could see the still present clown make-up and grin. "We should leave."

Sam shook his head again and stepped to his right so the Devil was no longer blocking his view. The silver spear shook in his hand as he stared out at the tree and he could just see Dean along the side of the house watching the clearing and him. He hoped Dean couldn't tell the Devil in his head was screwing with him again.

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It sat among the trees on the edge of civilization in the new darkness of evening. It watched the people as they idly went about their lives, oblivious to the danger lurking just out of their reach. It saw the little ones as they laughed and ran through the grass and leaves in the narrow band of light from an open door .It waited as their game of laughter and screams drew them ever closer to its hiding place. It hungered. It wanted and it hated.

A sudden pain drew down its chest and it reared back with an eerie cry that sailed out into the air. The little ones stopped their play, staring at its hiding place and ran away out of its reach. It growled and raised a bark-gnarled hand to its chest. Blood coated its fingers as it raised them to the moonlight and it knew; something was hurting its tree. Rage suffused its being as it spun and fled into the dark forest. It licked the blood from its hand, whetting its appetite and rushed through the trees, its eyes seeing as though it were day.

The forest parted before it for it was the forest, of the forest, born of its boughs and leaves, root and earth. Distance was nothing and its lungs did not burn nor did it slow. It neared the home of its birth and smelled the intruders. It slowed and weaved among its brother trees, red eyes like blood rubies peering out between the screening limbs. A man stood beyond his tree and huddled against the side of its hated creator's house. It saw green eyes dart here and there and smiled for the man did not see it. It looked to its left and saw another man, slightly taller in shadow of the trees. This man was not watching as carefully as the other. He twitched as though something were pinching him and as it watched; the man closed his eyes tightly. It grinned a toothless smile and sent its thoughts out to its tree as it reached for the man who smelled of its blood.

Dean looked out at the tree and beyond the hanging branches into the forest. There was still nothing to see and his teeth were beginning to itch just sitting there. He could barely make out Sam's pale face in the stand of trees across from him. He frowned when he saw his brother jerk. He took a step away from the house and chaos exploded around him. The whip like limbs of the Willow tree blew into motion in a whirlwind. He had no time to react as several launched themselves at him and wrapped around his legs, pulling him from his feet.

Sam slammed his eyes open, Lucifer's voice going quiet and saw the Willow tree erupt into movement. "Dean!" He shouted as his brother was pulled to the ground. Sam gasped as long, hard fingers dug into his arms and shoulder. He twisted and met the glowing red eyes of the Willow Man. He was a caricature of the man he had once been. Like the Spriggans his skin had been turned to bark. Leaves and vines made a parody of the coat he must have been wearing when the Witch's curse took him and turned him. If there was any humanity left within him, Sam couldn't see it in the eyes that glared at him with rage.

The Willow Man lifted Sam up in a display of strength. Sam shouted as he was thrown, flying through the air toward the Willow tree. He braced himself for a hard impact with the ground that never came. The lithe limbs of the tree curled around him and snatched him from the air with a jerk that snapped his head back and made him see stars as he was lifted.

"Sammy!" Dean yelled his name and could only watch as his brother was wrapped up in the limbs and taken higher.

Sam's air was choked off as one of the limbs snaked around his throat. Irreverently he thought he was getting real tired of everything supernatural going for his throat. He scrabbled at the vine like limb, trying to give himself room for a breath. His left arm was enwrapped suddenly and pulled out to his side, tugging painfully at the joint in his shoulder.

Dean growled angrily as he was dragged across the ground toward the base of the tree. More of the Willow's supple limbs waved like angry snakes above him and the ones wrapped around his legs squeezed tighter; cutting off his circulation. "Son of a bitch!" He shouted. He saw Sam's legs kicking above him. The strength in his brother's legs was obviously waning, the kicks becoming weaker and fear spurred him to action. Dean drew his spear back and stabbed it into the base of the Willow tree with all his strength. He jerked his head back as a strange scream sounded behind him and he saw the Willow Man drawing closer.

Sam felt the limb around his neck loosen slightly as the creature screamed. He scraped a breath past the tightness and pain, fighting back the darkness that was crawling across his vision. Limbs whipped around him, slapping into him; his back, sides, his legs leaving stinging welts in their wake. He felt blood begin to run in some places. Sam pulled his knife from his belt and reached above his head, searching by feel for the limb that tightened again and cut off his air. He sliced the blade through the limb and his throat was released. He gasped in burning breaths as the Willow Man's scream sounded again. Sam was dropped to the ground, landing with a thump that knocked the air he needed so badly from his lungs.

"Sam!" Dean drew his own knife and leaned forward to saw at the limbs holding his legs. The Willow Man's dark, twisted form stalked between the two brothers with a warbling growl. He raised arms wreathed in leaves and the Willow trees roots erupted up beneath Dean.

"Shit!" Dean swung at them with the knife as they swarmed over him and tried to capture his arms. Several of the dirt crusted roots rose up and speared down. Dean cursed and writhed to avoid them as their points slammed into the earth and drew back again. One drove through his side, just catching him and he choked on a pained scream as it ripped back out of him.

Sam rolled painfully to his side. He felt more limbs and roots swarming up his legs, squeezing as they rose higher up his body. In front of him the Willow Man stood watching Dean. Sam swallowed a gulp of air and raised his arm to drive the blade of his knife into the Willow Man's leg.

Dean saw Sam stab the creature. The roots and limbs holding him dropped away as the Willow Man turned its attention on his brother. Dean rolled free of them. He ignored the pain in his side and yanked his spear free of the tree and turned to the Willow Man.

"Hey ugly!" Dean shouted, stopping it as it bent to grab Sam's head. The Willow Man spun shakily. Its red eyes widened in something close to fear as it saw Dean raised the spear and charged him.

It saw his death in the green eyes. It saw a rage to match its own in those eyes and knew it was because it had hurt the other man and…it feared.

The Willow Man turned and vanished into the woods with blinding speed. "Shit!" Dean yelled and lowered the spear as the limbs and roots fell into stillness with the creature's departure. "Holy crap." Dean dropped to his knees beside Sam and pressed a hand against the bleeding wound in his side. "Sammy?"

"He gone?" Sam asked hoarsely and looked up at him.

"Yeah." Dean watched Sam struggle to his hands and knees and dropped a hand on his back. "You ok?" He lifted his hand with a hiss when he felt the blood. In the moonlight, the back of Sam's shirt looked to be in ribbons with dark stripes that could only be blood. "Damn."

"It's ok." Sam said through clenched teeth. "Just…hurts like a bitch." He glanced up and saw the blood leaking between Dean's fingers. "Crap, are you ok?" He rocked back on his heels and pulled Dean's hand away from his side. "Lemme see."

"Dude." Dean batted his hand away. "How about we get the hell outta here before you play Nurse Nancy?" He saw Sam's dropped spear and pulled it over, using the ground to push it back in. "You see the bag?"

Sam looked around wearily and nodded. "By the tree."

"Great." Dean stood, stumbling a little and cautiously went to the tree. He bent with his eyes on the myriad hanging limbs that thankfully stayed still, only swaying gently in the night breeze. He collected his own spear and the flame thrower, tucking them in the bag before he went back to Sam. Dean took his brother's arm and pulled him up. "You know, you didn't say anything about having to fight the damn tree too." He smirked.

"I didn't know!" Sam bent double against the burning of the welts across his back and stomach and tried to catch his breath. "Wasn't in the lore."

"You need better books." Dean gently pulled him upright again and slung an arm over his shoulders. They stumbled away from the Willow tree and into the woods. "Not sure who's helping who here."

Sam chuckled softly and tried not to knock into his brother as they walked unsteadily back to the car. "We need a better plan."

"Ya think?" Dean shook his head, disgusted. "Got our asses handed to us."

They reached the car safely with no sign of more Spriggans or the Willow Man himself but Dean was sure he was off licking his wounds somewhere and likely trying to dig Sam's knife out of his leg. That made him smile as he used the hood of the car to support him around to the driver's side.

Sam did a slow collapse into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut and leaned forward toward the dash. His back hurt too much to sit back. He heard Dean curse when the dome light came on and felt him tugging at the remains of his shirt.

"Damn, Sam." Dean studied the bleeding welts on his brother's back with a renewed spurt of needed vengeance. "Look like a reject from a friggin pirate movie or something."

"Feels like I got flogged." Sam snorted and let his head rest on the dash.

Dean turned away and started the car, pulling away from the forest and headed for the motel. The darkened streets were mostly empty for which he was thankful as a police cruiser passed them, unable to see the blood in the dark.

"Crap!" Sam burst into motion, swiping at his neck.

"What?" Dean slowed as Sam thrashed.

Sam caught the thing that had suddenly wriggled down into the front of his shirt and threw it into the backseat. "Shit." It was part of the Willow limb that had strangled him, jostled loose when he'd leaned forward in the car.

Dean looked quickly away and fought to keep the smirk off his face.

"Shut up." Sam glared over at him.

Dean shook his head, the smirk breaking through. "Didn't say nothin'."

"Uh huh." Sam watched him a second longer and then laid his head on the dash again.

"I won't tell anyone you squealed like a little girl." Dean said softly and broke into a laugh as Sam growled.

"You suck." Sam said with feeling as they pulled into the motel and parked in front of their room.

"I can't help myself." Dean shrugged and eased out of the car, holding his side.

Sam followed him into the room, shutting the door and sank down into a chair with a weary sigh. When Dean tossed the first aid kit on the table Sam pulled it away from him. "You first."

"Dude." Dean reached for it but Sam moved it further away.

"I didn't get stabbed. Sit." Sam raised his brows and pointed to the chair until Dean huffed an irritated breath and sat. He tugged off his jacket and shirts and got his first good look at the wound.

"Aw it's just through the meat." Dean said now he could see it.

Sam nodded. "Not bad." He quickly disinfected the puncture wounds in front and back. Thankfully neither was bad enough to need stitches and had already stopped actively bleeding. He cleaned them up and taped bandages over both.

"Your turn." Dean didn't bother trying to pull Sam's shirt over his head. It was mostly in shreds thanks to the whipping he'd received. He just cut what was left of the one of the shoulders and pulled it off. "This is gonna hurt." Sam nodded and he poured antiseptic down his brother's back, it being the easiest, quickest way to get all the myriad wounds there. Sam groaned and leaned forward onto the table. "Sorry, Sammy." Dean rested a hand on the back of his neck, about the only place he could touch that wasn't flayed. "Really did a number on you."

It took near an hour to clean and patch up of Sam's lacerations. By the time Dean was done he had just enough energy left to stumble over to his bed and crawl onto it. Dean was quick to follow after making sure the salt lines were intact and dropped into exhausted sleep listening to Sam's even breaths in the bed beside him.

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It followed the scent; the scent of its blood, the scent of their blood. They went boldly along the roads while it skulked among the shadows of man's buildings. It slung long arms up to roof tops and loped into the darkness. It dropped into the shadows of alleys and always it followed the scent. It was angry. They had hurt it. They had attacked it and its tree. It slid between the lights of a parking lot and watched the door with a number grow closer. It trailed clawed, gnarled fingers over the still warm engine of the car and it smiled.

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_To Be Continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The Willow Man turned to the car, drawn by the piece of his tree. It could feel the limb inside the metal machine and it called to it in a low hiss. Inside the car, the short limb of the Willow tree Sam had removed twitched in the back seat. It began to move and undulate, snaking across the seat and up the door to the window where it found the Willow Man's hand waiting on the other side of the class. The Willow tendril pressed against the glass, answering its master's call. A moment later there was a soft crack, like a pop and a small hole appeared. The tendril slithered through the hole and into the waiting hand.

It took the piece of its tree and turned red eyes to the door it knew its prey waited behind. Silent steps took it closer and it bent to its knees to place the tendril in the narrow patch of dry earth beneath the window. The Willow Man stood back and raised its arms to the night sky. It sent its power down to the little limb and grinned with a hiss as it burrowed into the earth out of sight. A small green shoot appeared. It grew with the influx of power. The Willow Man never moved; eyes on the sky and power trained on the newly forming Willow.

The shoot became a trunk, lithe and narrow it rose; reaching the bottom of the window and then higher. Limbs like thin string grew from it, spreading out and widening, lengthening. Leaves popped from tiny buds and now it stood higher than the window as the strongest of its branches began to brush against the glass. The Willow Man finally lowered its head and looked at its creation. It went to the new life and placed its hands on the thin trunk with one word in its mind; Kill.

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Dean rolled off his side and groaned. It may have been a minor injury but it ached like hell. Sam was twitching in the bed next to him; small sounds that told Dean a nightmare was trying to get its hooks into his brother. He sat up with a sigh and eased over to the other bed, sitting beside him.

"Hey, Sammy." Dean laid a hand on the back of Sam's neck where he slept on his stomach. He knew what it was to have so much Hell in your head and while Sam wouldn't always admit to the content of his nightmares, Dean knew. They still haunted his own dreams some nights. He squeezed Sam's neck to let him know he wasn't alone as whatever was tormenting him seemed to gain strength. Sam lurched up suddenly on a short cry, eyes wide and staring around the dimly lit room.

"Dean?" Sam gasped and turned his head. Once he saw his brother, relief dropped into his stomach and he fell back into his pillow.

"Right here." Dean patted his shoulder lightly, avoiding the patchwork of bandages on his back and went back to his own bed.

Sam concentrated on breathing deeply as the vestiges of the nightmare left him. It had been strange; not that Lucifer was taunting him in his dreams, that was normal but the content was puzzling him. He took another breath and tried to calm himself back into sleep but the feeling he'd woken with wouldn't leave him. Sam had the sudden need to not be in the bed. He struggled to sit up, swinging his legs off the bed and looked around the room with his feeling of something 'wrong'.

"Sam? You ok?" Dean asked sleepily from the other bed.

Sam shook his head. "I don't…" There came a light scratching sound on the window just for a moment. The sense of dread that lingered from his nightmare choked him suddenly. Sam lurched over to his brother and clamped his hands on Dean's arm. "Up!" He pulled Dean bodily from the bed, ignoring the pain in his back and dragged him away.

"Sam, what the hell?" Dean stumbled and got his feet under him. "What…"

The window between their beds exploded into the room in a shower of glass as thin, serpentine Willow branches dove in to spear down into the beds where they had been only a moment before.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean shouted, stumbling back into Sam in shock.

"Flame throwers?" Sam asked and grabbed a blue chair from behind him to try and defend them.

"Under the damn bed." Dean groaned as the branches ripped back up out of the mattresses to wave menacingly in the air. Their movement parted the tatters of the curtains at the window to reveal red eyes watching from outside around the trunk of a tree that wasn't there when they came in.

Sam stepped around him with his chair held in front. "I'll draw them off. You get the weapons bag."

"This plan sucks." Dean inched away from Sam and prepared to dive under his bed. He crouched beneath a swinging tendril of the tree, feeling it whistle over his head and then sniffed the air. "Oh shit. Sam?"

"Little busy!" Sam had tangled several of the whipping limbs in the chair and struggled to hold it as they pulled, trying to wrench it from his grasp.

"No time to play, Sammy!" Dean grabbed him and threw them both into the bathroom, slamming the door. "In the tub!"

"What?" Sam reared back as a Willow tendril pierced the thin wood of the door and shot past his shoulder.

"Get in the damn tub!" Dean pulled Sam, tripping him over the side of the tub and fell in on top of him as an explosion rocked the room. A wave of heat blasted the bathroom door in and Dean hunched as low as he could over Sam as debris flew in on top of them; ceiling tiles, wood, porcelain from the sink. The sound was deafening and seemed to go on forever.

"Dean." Sam poked him in the shoulder and yelled louder. "Dean! Think it's over!" His ears were ringing with the blast and between his abused back yelling at him and Dean's weight on top of him, breathing was becoming a problem.

Dean nodded. "Right." He shook his head to try and clear the ringing in his ears and popped his head up over the edge of the tub. "Dude. Don't think we're getting our deposit back." The bathroom door was now a gaping hole. The door itself was in pieces embedded in the bathroom wall.

"Can't breathe." Sam pointed out and gasped in a breath when Dean levered himself up and out of the tub.

"Sorry. Stay put." Dean inched over to the edge of the gaping hole in the wall and looked out into the room. Smoke curled up from a small crater in the floor where his bed been. The bed was half in the window and pieces of tree and limb lay strewn about the floor, charred and smoking. There was no sign of the Willow Man. Flames licked at the remnants of curtains still somehow hanging and the Smurf blue microwave had been impaled by the knife Dean kept under his pillow. He ducked below the smoke hanging on the ceiling and went to it, wrapping his hand around the handle and pulled the knife free with a grunt. Dean smiled. "Takes a lickin'."

"Little help here." Sam called from the bathroom.

"Comin'." Dean slid the knife behind his belt and went back in to find Sam trying to get off his back.

"Dammit." Sam groaned, irritated at being unable to get his back to cooperate. He took the arm Dean held down and let his brother pull him upright where he swayed for a moment. "No more shots to my back? Please?"

Dean smirked. "Starting to look like an old man, Sammy." He steadied Sam as he got out of the tub. "Clear out there I think. Either he blew up or he ran."

Sam nodded. "If he was caught in the blast, he'll just reform at his tree." He straightened slowly and followed Dean out into the wreck of their room. Sirens began to sound in the distance. "Uh oh."

"Yeah. Think it's time to get the hell out of dodge." Dean searched the room quickly. He found their duffels piled behind Sam's bed where it had been thrown up against the wall and grabbed them but there was little else left to save. "Well, at least we won't go naked."

"Gimme a shirt and let's go." Sam shivered at the cold air flowing in through the broken out window.

They had to clear pieces of tree and roof tiles from the car but managed to get out of the motel parking lot before the first police car arrived. The few other people staying there had paid them little attention; too busy being shocked by the explosion and fire to realize they had come out of the damaged room.

"It was the flame throwers." Dean said after they were a mile down the road. "Smelled the fuel leaking. One of those damn roots or whatever must have pierced the casing when it went through the bed." He glanced over at Sam. "Which reminds, you wanna tell me how you knew to get my ass outta the bed right then?"

Sam shrugged and grimaced, the motion pulling the wounds in his back. "Heard something scratch at the window." He looked over and smiled. "Figured better safe than sorry." Dean gave him a look to say he knew he wasn't telling the whole truth but Sam kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to tell Dean that Lucifer had told him in his nightmare that he needed to get out of bed and he certainly didn't want Dean asking what else had gone on in the nightmare. Sam shuddered and put it out of his head, wrapping his right hand around his left and pressing into the scar.

Dean saw him go for the scar and scowled. It pissed him off that he couldn't stop the Devil from haunting Sam and it terrified him as evidence that sooner or later, Sam was going to crack for good. He knew it. They just had that sort of luck.

"I'm fine, Dean." Sam said suddenly and Dean studied the road.

"Didn't say anything." Dean didn't have to look to know Sam was rolling his eyes. "So you got any ideas how we gank the tree hugger without being strangled by that damn tree of his?"

"Wish we could just kill the damn tree." Sam groaned, shifting forward in the seat. "Ok we know if we hurt the tree he'll come running."

"So finding him's not an issue." Dean spotted a new motel and turned for it. "That's about all we got going for us."

They passed a small strip mall and Sam's eyes widened. "Hey, Dean?" He looked over with a smile. "You ever fire a harpoon gun?" He pointed to the hunting and fishing shop next to the motel.

"Sammy." Dean grinned at him. "Sometimes you kick ass." He pulled into the Starlight Motel and parked. "We can stake the sucker to his damn tree without ever having to get near it. Nice."

Sam chuckled at the happy grin on Dean's face and wondered if he was more excited about killing the Willow Man or getting to fire a harpoon gun. "Still have to think of a better way to set them both on fire without getting flayed again."

Dean got them a room as he looked the least disreputable of the two of them at the moment, with Sam's back covered in bloody spots through his shirt and the ring of bruising around his neck. The clerk wasn't entirely happy about being woken up at three in the morning but the wad of cash Dean paid him with brightened his mood slightly. He smiled happily when they got to their room and opened the door.

"This is more like it." Dean said as the room was brown on brown; brown carpet and bedspreads, white furniture and a properly white microwave instead of Smurf blue.

Sam snorted and elbowed him as he passed. "Look up."

"Aw come on!" Dean glared at the collection of children's star stickers plastered across the ceiling. They were everywhere in haphazard constellations. "Screw it. It's better than the Smurf room and I don't have to look at them."

Sam had a feeling and reached out to flick the room light off. Sure enough the stars began to glow and the ceiling became a dizzying pinwheel. "Starlight Motel dude."

"Oh that's just not fair." Dean turned the light back on and tossed his bag on his bed. "We're sleeping with the light on."

Sam chuckled and headed for the bathroom. "I need a shower."

Dean waved him off and then methodically searched everything they'd brought from the old room as well as the car for any sign of any piece of the damn tree the Willow Man had made grow. He cursed loud and long when he found the hole in the back passenger window of the car; further evidence that it was the piece of the tree they had brought back that had somehow led the creature to them. When he was satisfied he took a last look around the parking lot and went back inside. Sam was out and bent over his bag looking for a shirt and Dean grimaced at the sight. He had a new collection of bruises over the welts from his impromptu landing in the tub.

"How are you even moving?" Dean asked and pulled his bag over to find the first aid kit and the painkillers.

Sam smirked. "Shower helped." He shrugged and cringed. "Helped a little. Ow."

Dean waved at Sam's bed. "Go on." He pulled the antiseptic and the painkillers out as well, handing those to him. "Doctor Dean says take a fistful of these and call him in the morning."

"Dude." Sam laughed and took two of them, dry swallowing rather than try to find something to drink before he lay out on his stomach and buried his face in the pillow.

Dean made quick work of cleaning the open welts, bandaging them over while Sam tried not to squirm and tugged the blanket up over him when he was done. "Get some sleep." Sam gave him a grunt and didn't move.

Rather than climb in his own bed, Dean poured salt lines, scratched protective symbols in the door and window frames and wished he had someone to call and ask about protection from a damn tree monster. In that moment he missed Bobby fiercely and swallowed the lump in his throat. He went back to his bag to put the salt away and frowned.

"Huh." Dean picked up the can of Linseed oil that had fallen out. "Don't remember packing that." He shoved it back in the bag along with the salt and then took it out again, staring at it with a slow smile forming.

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"Time to wake up, princess." Dean shook Sam's legs.

Sam groaned. "Five more minutes dad." He heard Dean snort and Sam wrinkled his nose, opening his eyes and leaned up from his pillow. "What is that smell?" He pushed up and looked over to where Dean had a covered bucket on the table and a few glass bottles.

"We're gonna Molotov his ass once he's staked to the tree." Dean held up a can with a grin. "Linseed oil. Kinda poetic I think."

Sam chuckled and stood stiffly. "Right. They use that stuff to treat Willow Cricket bats."

Dean nodded. "And it just happens to be damn flammable." He laughed as he stuffed another bottle with an oil soaked rag. "We'll lay the ones I already did in the bucket around the base of the tree before he shows up. Then we just toss these." He held up one of the now filled bottles. "And bring some weenies for the roast."

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The earth shifted at the base of the Willow tree beside the Witch's house. Something moved beneath it as the hanging, graceful branches above swayed with no help from a breeze. They reached to the soil as it bulged upward, digging their long tendrils in and pulled. A shape crusted in dirt rose into the morning light wrapped lovingly in the limbs as they laid it gently beside the trees trunk. The bundle of roots and earth moved, arms spreading wide as they fell away and the Willow man rose from the bed of disturbed earth to wrap its arms around its tree.

Fire had burned it and it felt the flames still, shivering as the Willow tree wrapped comfortingly around it. It hungered and it wanted revenge. It wanted to taste their blood and to offer them to its tree, to appease it for harming them but first…the hunger won. It was weak, its power spent in its rebirth. It needed to feed. It turned toward the West where it knew man's civilization waited and it walked on unsteady legs to find a little one…a little one to feed them both.

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_To Be Continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"You wanna wait til nightfall?" Dean asked, watching Sam bend over stiffly to grab a bottle of water from the little refrigerator. He thought maybe Sam could use a few more hours lying down but Sam shook his head.

"I don't think we should." Sam leaned carefully against the dresser and frowned. "Regenerating has to use up a lot of energy." He gave Dean a dark look. "He's going to need to feed."

"Crap." Dean leaned back in the chair with a thump. "So if we wait for dark some poor kid's gonna end up on the menu."

"Yeah. We probably have a few hours but…" Sam shrugged. "Not much more than that I'd bet."

"Go grab a shower then before you can't move." Dean chuckled. "I moved faster than you when I was ninety." He laughed at the look of disgust on Sam's face at the reminder of the time Dean had been aged.

"I'm fine." Sam rolled his eyes. "Just gonna brush my teeth." He went in the bathroom slowly and shut the door.

"Uh huh." Dean was all for the old Winchester adage of 'suck it up and carry on' but the way Sam was moving he'd never survive a fight. The hot water would loosen him up so Dean made an executive decision, being the awesome big brother he was. He went to his duffel and took out the brown bag he'd picked up at the store yesterday. He chuckled and blew a breath into the bag, expanding it and went to the bathroom door. Dean silently turned the knob and eased it open. He angled the head of the bag in near the top of the door and then slapped the bottom of the bag.

A cloud of sparkling glitter erupted into the bathroom to shower down around Sam's head and shoulders and he roared. Dean laughed uproariously and ducked away as the door opened and six feet four inches of furious sasquatch stalked out.

"Dean you son of a bitch!" Sam shouted as Dean dropped back onto his bed, tears of laughter running down his face.

"That…was awesome!" Dean gasped and rolled away as Sam reached for him, going for the door. "Twenty minutes Tinkerbell! Take a damn shower."

Sam watched Dean run, pulling the door shut on a laugh and threw his arms up in the air. Glitter showered off of him to the floor. "I'll kill him." He growled. He turned back to the bathroom, having no choice but to shower and then stopped, a grin pulling across his face. "On the other hand." Sam went to Dean's bed and whipped the blanket and sheet back. He leaned over his brother's bed and rubbed his glittery hair furiously creating a downpour of sparkly particles onto the exposed sheet. Happy the irritating stuff was evenly distributed, he pulled the top sheet and blanket back, carefully making the bed so it looked no different than it had.

Sam dusted his hands off and went into the bathroom with a happy chuckle. "Teach him to glitter bomb me."

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Dean snuck a glance at Sam moving beside him through the woods and smirked. He was moving much better for letting the shower beat out some of the ache, not to mention the stray flickers of glitter that stubbornly refused to leave his mop of dark hair. He couldn't stop the amused snort.

"Shut up." Sam glared over at him. He was actually enjoying the hilarity his brother found in the glitter; it was so nice to see him smile and actually feel it and to hear that laugh that had been missing for so long. Sam knew though that part of the fun was his frustration so he gave him that too.

Dean smirked and then focused his attention on the woods. "Head in the game, sparkles."

Sam reached out a long arm and slapped Dean up the back of his head as they neared the Witch's house. Dean growled at him but said nothing as they slipped silently forward to find out if the Willow Man was waiting for them or not.

"Looks clear." Dean whispered and walked cautiously up to the Willow tree. He watched the boughs warily where they touched the ground as he passed but without the Willow Man there it seemed to be just a tree. He set the bucket down and popped off the lid, whipping his head as the fumes from the Linseed oil hit him. Dean smiled as he packed the soaked towels around the base of the tree. He took the oil still in the bottom of the empty bucket and poured it onto the trunk above the rags, making sure that when they lit it up there'd be no mistake.

Sam handed him his harpoon gun when he came jogging back and turned so Dean could pull a couple of the Molotov bottles from the bag on his back. They split up heading back into the trees and went as still as they could crouched low behind screening bushes and waited. Sooner or later the creature would be back and this time they would be ready.

The afternoon began to while away while they remained hidden and still. Dean fought the need to squirm with the itching of the healing wound in his side. He was sure Sam had to be even more uncomfortable hunched over with his abused back for so long. He glanced around the sun dappled clearing behind the house but the only came from the gentle swaying of the Willow's limbs in the cold breeze. A movement drew his eyes and he saw Sam wave a brief hand and point back into the forest. It was coming.

Sam heard footsteps in the fallen leaves. They were erratic, stumbling; not what he had come to expect from the Willow Man. He wondered if perhaps some hiker wasn't wandering in where they shouldn't be when the creature came into view. He wasn't moving with the lithe grace Sam bad come to expect. He staggered and hunched forward as he came, red eyes locked on his tree. Sam frowned. He was carrying something. He squeezed carefully forward to get a better look and nearly gasped when he realized what it was; a child.

Long brown hair tumbled out of the Willow Man's arm to wave in the breeze as it neared its tree. The little one had seen it and screamed at it before it could subdue her. The smell of her flesh was intoxicating, filling all his sense through the long trek back to its tree. It had eyes for little else but her and it gave a soft moan of anticipation as it finally stood before its tree and laid her on the ground at its base. Soon it would feast.

Sam saw Dean jerk in his hiding spot as he too realized what was happening. If they didn't act the girl would die. 'Come on.' Sam silently begged as the Willow Man drew closer to the tree. The long limbs began to move, waving through the air with life of their own. The ground began to shift around the girl's still form and Sam wondered if they were already too late. Roots began to emerge from the earth to wave and wrap up and over her. The Willow Man stepped up to the trunk of the tree and wrapped his arms lovingly around it, raising his face to the sky and the sun streaming down.

Dean stood and fired his harpoon. It arced between the swaying limbs and pierced through the upper right side of the Willow Man's back, nailing him to the tree. "Sam!" He shouted and watched as his brother stood and fired his own harpoon. The second drove through the middle of the creature's back as he screamed in surprise and rage. The entire jerked, leaves showering down like dry rain as the little girl was pulled beneath the soil by the roots.

"Light it up!" Sam yelled to his brother and lit the first of his own Molotov bottles. He watched Dean arc two of the flaming bottles through the air to strike the base of the tree and flames erupted up the trunk and the Willow Man's struggling form. Sam threw his and then followed after. He dove beneath the whipping limbs of the tree, rolling to his feet.

"Dammit, Sam!" Dean watched him run near the inferno at the base of the tree and fall to his knees.

Sam dug furiously into the loose earth with his hands. The heat from the flames only a foot away seared the skin of his face. He ignored it as his hands found a coat and then an arm. He cleared the soil as fast as he could and got a grip on the little girl, pulling with all his strength. The roots holding her resisted at first but released her in a rush. Sam tumbled back with the girl on his chest.

"Sam! Get the hell out of there!" Dean shouted above the roar of the fire and the Willow Man's screams.

Sam scrambled to his feet with her and ran for the corner of the Witch's house. He skidded to a stop and laid the child down beyond the wall and outside the reach of the tree. He held his hand above her mouth and nearly swooned with relief; somehow she was still breathing. He stood and came back out from behind the house.

"Dean! She's alive!" Sam yelled and then gasped as thick rope of twined limbs came swinging for him.

"Sam!" Dean ran from his cover, sprinting beneath the Willow to try and reach him. He watched as the limbs slapped into Sam and entwined around his arms, yanking him from his feet.

The Willow Man craned its head and glared at the two men. They would take its food and try to kill it and its tree? It would make them pay with its dying breaths.

Dean made a grab for Sam's foot as he was hoisted above his head and grunted as something slammed into his back. He was lifted off his feet and thrown through the air. The limbs of the Willow Tree parted in his path and he could only watch as he fell toward the closed door of the Witch's cellar. He crashed into them and through them to tumble down the short flight of stairs.

"Dean!" Sam struggled, trying to free his arms from the limbs twined around them as his brother vanished into the cellar in a tangle of limbs. "Dammit!" He pulled on his right arm and looked up. "Oh crap." The flames had eaten their way up the trunk and were now working out over the crown of the Willow tree and beginning to creep down the long limbs toward him. Below, the Willow Man writhed against the trunk of the tree, unable to free himself and screamed his rage up at Sam. The limbs holding him tightened their grip around his forearms painfully. The flames were getting closer. He could feel their heat on his hands. Sam felt a sudden lessening of the tension on his right arm and pulled. The burning limbs above parted and his arm fell away as flaming bits of tree and leaves showered down around him, kissing his head and face with their heat.

Dean groaned and then gagged. The Witch's putrefying corpse lay a few feet away and the stench of rotting flesh filled the cellar in an almost visible haze. Flies buzzed in a cloud above the body and her dress shifted minutely in places with the movement of the maggots beneath it as they fed. He fought but couldn't stop the bile that rose up his throat and he rolled to his knees as his hasty lunch made a reappearance across the dirt floor. His eyes watered with the smell, nose burning as his stomach eased and he scrambled back toward the stairs.

"Son of a bitch." He gasped and felt the bottom stair against his back. Sam's voice came down to him, crying out in pain. Dean turned and crawled painfully up the stairs and away from the miasma, desperate for a clean breath of air. His head cleared the door and he stared up into a growing inferno. The fire had spread up the trunk and was now eating its way down the long, whip-like limbs. "Sammy!" His little brother hung by one arm. The limbs wrapped around his left arm up to his shoulder were on fire as Sam twisted, trying to reach his knife and free himself. Dean's eyes narrowed to the base of the tree. The Willow Man, though engulfed in the flames, had his eyes firmly fixed on Sam.

Dean pushed down the pain of the bruises and what he was sure was a bruised, if not broken, rib and staggered to his feet. He ran, ducking beneath the wildly swaying, burning limbs of the tree. He pulled his knife from the back of his belt as he reached the immolation that was the base of the trunk and stabbed his arm into the flames. The point of his knife dove into the Willow Man's left eye. Dean jerked the blade free as the creature let loose an insane scream that pierced into Dean's ears. He stumbled back and looked up in time to see the burning limbs release Sam, dropping him to the ground with a thump.

"Sam!" Dean ran to him. "Come on. Up." He grabbed Sam under the shoulders and pulled the dazed man to his feet.

Sam groaned and fought the blackness that wanted to take him. A quick glance down at his left arm as Dean dragged him back made him wish he hadn't looked. They staggered away from the fiery rain around the side of the Witch's house. "Dean…get the girl."

Dean leaned him up against the wall. "You good?" Sam gave him a weak nod. Dean bent to the little girl. She couldn't have been more than six and weighed nothing as he picked her up and tipped her over his shoulder. It pulled on his ribs and he had to pause for a moment to catch his breath. He looked up when Sam dropped his good hand to his shoulder.

"You ok?" Sam asked, concern in his eyes as he watched Dean struggle to stand up straight.

Dean nodded and pulled Sam with his free arm. "Come on, crispy." They skirted the edge of the clearing behind the house. The Willow Man had gone silent at last and the tree itself was a forty foot bonfire stretching up into the afternoon sky. The Witch's house was on fire now as well, the roof bursting into flames with a whoosh as the dry timbers gave no resistance. The roar of the fire followed them through the forest until they were well away.

"Dude." Sam smirked over at Dean as he stumbled wearily. "You reek."

"You have no idea." Dean groaned and sniffed his own arm with a grimace before he took hold of Sam's right arm to steady him. "That bitch was beyond ripe man." Dean grimaced again at the taste in his mouth. "Tossed my cookies." He glared at Sam's chuckle. "There were maggots."

"Ick. Ok." Sam huddled his left arm against his chest and looked over. "What are we going to do with her?"

"We'll put her in that park we passed and call the cops." Dean adjusted the girl on his shoulder. "Keep an eye on her til they show up." He looked over at the disturbingly burnt arm of Sam's jacket. "Think there's a hospital in your future, Sammy."

Sam shook his head. "No, it's fine. Really."

Dean knew that was crap but didn't call him on it. The argument could wait until he got a good look at it. "You ever pull that superhero crap again without warning me I'll kick your ass." It had taken years off his life watching Sam run into the flames toward the Willow Man.

Sam gave a one armed shrug. He'd do it again if it meant saving the girl and he figured Dean knew that. He fought to keep his legs moving without dragging his feet as they plodded back through the forest and he stumbled to a stop for a moment to just look around. The 'wrong' feeling that had plagued him ever since they first set foot in that forest had vanished. He felt peace among the trees now and the sighing breeze moving the tree limbs around them was a friend, drafting cool air over his burning arm. He smiled.

"Hey, Forest." Dean dropped back and tugged him into a walk again. "When you're done communing with the damn trees can we go please?"

"Sorry." Sam smiled and started walking again.

**_-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-_ **

Dean idled the car into the space in front of their motel room and looked over at Sam. He'd curled into the passenger window, forehead pressed to the glass and asleep. The cops had taken a ridiculous twenty minutes to respond to his anonymous call, leaving them both in a misery of wounds; neither willing to leave their vigil over the still unconscious little girl alone in the park. He got out and went around to the passenger door, easing it open and caught Sam with a hand on his shoulder when he started to tilt forward out of the seat.

"Sam." Dean gave him a gentle shake and smirked at the hazel eyes that blinked up at him. "You want me to carry you in, princess?"

"Bite me." Sam mumbled but didn't put up an argument when Dean reached in and helped pull him out. "Gotta wrap those ribs?" He asked as he saw Dean wince again and splay a hand over his chest.

Dean snorted. "Don't think you've got two good arms to do it." He let Sam stagger to the door on his own and went to the trunk to drag out the first aid kit before following him in.

Sam dropped into a chair at the little table and shook his jacket and flannel off his right arm with a sigh. "This is gonna suck."

"Oh yeah." Dean dropped the kit on the table and pulled a chair up to Sam's left side. "Just…lemme do this part." He peeled the singed fabrics down his brother's arm, suffering each time it caught and pulled at the skin beneath. "Shit, Sammy."

Sam glanced over and groaned, closing his eyes on the bile that rose up his throat.

"No puking." Dean said quickly though he reached out and pulled over the trashcan just in case. "I gotta clean this, kiddo." He laid Sam's arm on the table and went to the bathroom. He filled the ice bucket with cool water and grabbed some towels.

"It's still burning." Sam muttered and jumped when he felt a cold, wet towel laid on his upper arm.

"Easy." Dean laid another towel over his forearm and dropped a hand to the back of Sam's neck. The skin on his arms was angry red and blistered especially below his elbow. The deep, spiral bruises from where he'd been held aloft weren't helping the pain level he was sure. "Let me see your other arm." Sam raised it out to his brother without argument and without opening his eyes, letting Dean know just how much misery he was in. His right arm wasn't burned but it sported the same bruise patterns to just above his elbow.

"S'okay." Sam said and took his right arm back, taking hold of the edge of the table instead. "Just get it over with. Please."

"Ok." Dean pulled the towels off his arm and clenched his jaw. The following ten minutes were a study in agony for Sam that had him flashing on his time in the Cage with Lucifer. No hallucinations for once but the memories were enough to leave him gasping and insensible.

"Shit. Sam!" Dean had hold of his face and gave him a light slap when his eyes started to roll back in his head.

"Sorry." Sam let his head fall forward onto Dean's shoulder, chick flick rule be damned; he needed a minute.

"Don't worry about it." Dean eased him back up. "Almost done, ok?" Sam nodded and Dean went back to his arm. He slathered burn cream from their kit on it and knew when the numbing properties took effect; Sam sighed and collapsed forward to rest his head on the table. Dean quickly wrapped a loose bandage from wrist to elbow and squeezed the back of his neck. "Ok, tiger. All done."

"Thank god." Sam mumbled into the table and made no effort to move.

"Up we go, sasquatch." Dean pulled Sam's right arm over his shoulders and pulled him up from the table, leading him to the far bed and let him down easy.

"Gotta wrap your ribs." Sam opened his eyes finally and made to sit back up but Dean pushed him back down with hand to his chest.

"I can do it." Dean smirked. "Not my first merry-go-round. Get some sleep."

Sam nodded and settled back into the bed with his mummified arm. Dean waited a moment to make sure he'd stay there and then pulled his shirts off with a pained groan. "Crap."

"Dean?" Sam looked up at the sound but Dean waved him back down.

"Would you stop already?" Dean rolled his eyes and snagged the Ace bandage out of the kit before heading to the bathroom. "Sleep, Sam." Dean caught another whiff of himself as he shut the bathroom door and groaned. "Yeesh." He stripped the rest of his clothes and turned the shower on. No way was he getting into bed and waking up with the smell of rotting, dead Witch in the morning. By the time he got out he felt better or at least smelled better. He pulled on sweat pants and grabbed the bandage. It took him twenty minutes and two tries to wrap the bandage around his chest properly and he sighed in relief when it took away some of the pain.

Dean came back in the room and rolled his eyes. "I thought I told you to go to sleep?" Sam watched him and was clearly studying his handiwork wrapping his own chest.

Sam smirked. "Just making sure you did it right." He let his head fall back into the pillow and closed his eyes. "Night, Dean."

"Smart-ass." Dean growled. He padded over and flipped off the light before climbing into his own bed and flopping under the blanket with a groan of happiness.

"Damn." Sam said suddenly and Dean could hear him rustling the blanket. "Forgot to check the salt lines."

"I'll do it. Stay put." Dean threw the blanket back and rolled out of the bed slowly. He heard something that sounded like a snort of laughter from Sam and ignored it. He stepped back to the light and turned it on, glanced back to Sam and his jaw dropped. "Son of a bitch! Sammy you bitch!" Dean's legs and chest were coated in glitter. More sparkled from the sheets of his bed and his little brother was rolling with laughter and groaning in pain at the same time.

"Point…Sam!" Sam raised a finger in the air and drew it down to emphasize his win.

"Soon as that arm is healed I am kicking your ass. You know that." Dean glared at him and then just stood with his arms out, staring down at himself.

"Don't…don't forget the light, Sparkles." Sam wheezed another laugh and batted away the pillow Dean lobbed at his head.

Dean growled loudly and stalked to the bathroom. "Gonna find clowns in all kinds of places they don't belong. You wait, Sammy." He grumbled and shut the door on Sam's laughter. In the bathroom, he leaned against the door and gave a soft chuckle. The glitter was worth the look on Sam's face he decided and shook his head. "Still gonna make you pay." He promised and grabbed a washcloth to start cleaning the sparkly crap off himself, wondering where the nearest toy store was. There were some clown dolls in Sam's future.

**_-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-_ **

_The End._


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